scenery. Let us not think that Alexander will conquer Asia the first time we are introduced to him, though smaller men may be in haste to re-enact their exploits then.
"Would you have
Such an Herculean actor in the scene,
And not his hydra?"
"They must sweat no less
To fit their properties than to express their parts."
The presence of heroic souls enhances the beauty and ampleness of Nature herself. Where they walk, as Vergil says of the abodes of the blessed,—
Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo: solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.
Here a more copious air invests the fields, and clothes with purple light; and they know their own sun and their own stars.11
But, alas! What is Truth? That which we know not. What is Beauty? That which we see not. What is Heroism? That which we are not. It is in vain to hang out flags on a day of rejoicing,—fresh bunting, bright and whole; better the soiled and torn remnant which has been borne in the wars.
We have considered a fair specimen of an Englishman in the sixteenth century; but it
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